Since canceling my Apple Music subscription after the free trial, I have continued living life as a happy Spotify user. iTunes and Apple Music are the companies most disgraceful products. The music apps on OS X and iOS are inscrutable disasters of design. During the free trial, playlists and songs would not consistently sync between my devices. And managing the difference between an iTunes Match subscription and an iCloud Music Library still doesn't make much sense to me.
Still, it has bugged me that I couldn't figure it out all out. I still have this desire to see my streaming songs alongside my archive of personal audio. And one of the reasons I have been holding out is about to change. Apple Music is finally coming to Sonos. I figured it was time to give the service another trial.
When I signed up again this afternoon I was met with all of the same syncing problems as before. My MacBook, though signed into the iCloud Music Library, was acting as if it wasn't, and I could not make any sense of what was syncing and what was not. Naturally, I decided to complain about this on Twitter. But it was then that I realized Apple has an Apple Music Help account. I decided to give it a try. I have been DMing them all afternoon and they are fast, helpful, and human. I feel like they hear my concerns, comprehend them fully, and address them each thoroughly. After a few hours, I am now seeing that most of my playlists and songs are syncing between my two Macs for the first time.
I still think Apple needs to overhaul iTunes and Apple Music in 2016. If they could make syncing audio work like their new Photos app, it would be a dream. Until then, I am having a better experience the second time around. And combined with my new subscription to YouTube Red (which automatically subscribes me to Google Music), I might be able to seriously consider ditching the paid Spotify tier.